


Tiercel

by Niki



Category: NCIS
Genre: Bad Puns, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Trope Bingo Round 6, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 19:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6389302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't always happen, but sometimes those with feather wings start moulting before they die, heralding their death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiercel

**Author's Note:**

> More _Anthony DiNozzo Jr._ tomorrow, for now, have my first ever wingfic. (I had no idea what to do with the prompt, so I took inspiration from dreams again, and based all of this on an image of my dad flying to work with wings that matched his uniform.) 
> 
> Beta, as always, by Neith. 
> 
> Trope Bingo Prompt: Wingfic

1.

Abby was eleven when her parents took her to get her first pair of wings. They were shaped like bat's, all velvet-smooth and black, and even though they were too small for flight she couldn't stop fluttering them for hours.

She still has the pair at home, packed in silk paper. You never forget your first pair.

Her current pair is bat winged again, larger of course, but still not big enough for flying. She has never wanted the hassle – the wingspan needed for true flight would be really impractical in a lab.

Gibbs and Tony make theirs look graceful, easy, but they have both learned to cope with them a long time ago. Soldiers and cops get their applications approved easier than others. Navy, too, of course.

She saw a picture once, of Gibbs in his Blues, wings matching and looking majestic, even folded. He hadn't gone for a new pair after leaving active service. Some don't, not wanting to lose the freedom of flight even in a civilian job. 

But Abby knows he hasn't actually used the wings for flying in a long time.

2.

Tony got his wings when he was eight. They were too large, and he was too young, but money makes miracles happen. He hadn't known the reason for the rush at the time, but his mother had to have known she was going to die. She'd never told him, and his father was always gone.

She looked so proud when Tony wanted a pair just like hers – _“White feathers, mama – like an _angel_.”_

After her death his father couldn't bear to see them – or him.

Tony clung to his baby wings through the military academy, through college, even though they were small enough to elicit mockery by then.

When Brad Pitt's tackle ended his dreams of a pro career by taking out his knee, it also dislocated his left wing badly enough it could not be reattached. 

He knew it was time to let them go, but the decision hurt more than the lost career.

3.

Kate knows what it means when she finds the feathers in her bed for the third morning in a row. 

Her sister has always scoffed at the superstition, casting it aside as confirmation bias – everyone sheds feathers sometime – or a self-fulfilling prophecy, but Kate recognises what it means when she starts moulting. She doesn't know how, or when, but she knows she's going to die.

She hates to leave her team in the middle of the crisis, and she knows she should warn the others but can't divide their attention with something like this.

They'll find the feathers on her bedside table with the letters and her updated will. They'll know. 

She still does not regret her choice of feathered wings.

4.

When Tony's wings are splattered with Kate's blood he knows it's time for another change. It's always painful, trading your wings, not to be done lightly, but he's hurting so much already, somehow both numb and in agony at the same time, that the timing seems perfect.

He does not choose this pair from a catalog – not from any of the fashion houses, or those developed for law enforcement needs. He shows them a picture he found in Kate's letter and lets them craft based on the black and white drawing.

5.

Tim knows his choice of wings is unorthodox. They look sleek and sporty where the rest of him doesn't, but for him they symbolise his mind, the speed of his thoughts, his greatest strength.

Tony mocked him for many things when he started at NCIS but never that. For Tony, wings seem to be off limits, too personal. It took Tim a while to recognise it for what it wass, but once he did, he never let his own barbs touch the brightly glinting plumage on the older man's back either. 

Tony wore his wings like a decoration so that people overlooked the wingspan and the muscle that meant he could fly with them, and fly fast. That ability had saved everyone in the team at least once by the time Kate died, and Tony clipped his wings.

Tim appreciates the symbolism, and briefly considered the same, but in the end decided it wouldn't be the same thing for him: his wings are a part of him in a way Tony's hadn't been.

6.

Gibbs's wings are matte gray – utilitarian and stark, designed to match the Greens and the Blues, the service uniform and the dress, easy to camouflage in the field. He never gives them much thought these days.

He'd known Tony was going to use his leave to get new wings but still does a double take when the man returns to the bullpen. 

He'd gotten too used to the old pair – all style and color, shining peacock blue in the sunlight – certain artificiality to their form that the new pair just highlighted by being completely opposite.

These are natural, stressing strength over style but looking the better for it. Falcon wings, he thinks, taking in the thin, tapered tips, the mottled brown color repeating the shades in his hair. 

It's somehow both understated and startling, mature and settled in a way the man had never looked before. 

This looks like a pair he might grow old with.

7.

Ziva's wings are black, not unlike raven's, and there's nothing stealthy about them. She wants you to be fully aware of how dangerous she is.

For a while Tony thinks they could match his, a raven and a falcon, but hers aren't that natural, and they never match, not really.

8.

Ducky has heard all the jokes, and he would be happy to tell you about them, in detail. He does _not_ have the wings of a duck, and he never has. 

When one sees the brown mottled wings of an owl ( _“Tawny owl or a brown owl, if you please, Jethro.”_ ) on his back, one finds it very difficult to imagine him to have ever worn anything else in his life.

( _“Carrion feeders, too, a rarity in owls – yes, Jethro?”_ )

9.

“Only kestrels hover, Tony!” Abby says pointedly, pushing him away from her computer.

“I am not a common kestrel, Abby! You better watch out – falcons feed on pigeons,” he says, nudging her new wings. 

“The joke's on you, those are obviously wings of a dove.” 

“Doves are pigeons, Probie. How long have you been holding on to that particular pun, Abby?”

“Oh, I've got more. I especially was hoping to be able to use the fact peregrine falcons kill their prey with their beaks instead of their talons – something about your mouth being deadly? But I never got it to work.”

“Maybe we can do something about the fact they are used for falconry?”

“But calling him Gibbs's hunting bird is not actually an insult, is it, Timmy?”

Tony thinks about making his own pun about being tamed.

10.

Some couples get matching wings when they get married or otherwise make the commitment to a relationship, but Tony knows they never will.

Gibbs's wings have been a part of him for so long they feel like just another limb, and Tony knows, even though the other man will never verbalise the thought, that as he never changed his wings for Shannon, he'll never change them for him either. 

Not that he'd ask for it. It is enough to be held by him, covered by the gray wings as if being protected from the entire world in their shared bed. 

Or, maybe even better, when Gibbs lets Tony hold _him_ , and envelop the older man in his wings, keeping him safe and warm and his.

(Peregrine falcons mate for life.)


End file.
